


Everything Is New

by romanticalgirl



Category: Dawson's Creek
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Honey, I'm still free</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Is New

**Author's Note:**

> Canon? What canon? Also, WTF Dawson's Creek? Written for the [Getting Lucky Challenge-A-Thon Thing!](http://romanticalgirl.livejournal.com/589644.html)
> 
> Originally posted 3-20-08

Jen knows every type of bar there is. She’s been in them all: Yuppie bars and dive bars and gay bars and bars that pretend they’re something else and bars that aren’t really anything but too much beer in one location, but this one has to be, by far, the worst bar she’s ever been in, and even as she walks into the shaded gloom, she’s calculating how long it’s going to be before she’s walking out.

This is not the kind of bar where women go to meet men or even get laid. It’s the kind of bar that women studiously avoid because, even if Jodie Foster won an Oscar for _The Accused_ , getting raped isn’t something you really want to do on a Friday night. The problem is that this bar is the only bar in all of Capeside that an off-duty deputy can slip into and drown his sorrows without anyone saying a word.

She goes straight to the back table and sits opposite him, sighing and resting her elbow on the table, propping her chin in her hand. “What is it this time?”

“Go away.”

“Nope.” She lifts her elbow and makes a face at the table then sighs and sets it down again. “Come on. You can tell me.”

“It’s nothing.” He deliberately raises his glass and offers her a toast. His eyes are the same hypnotizing blue that has gotten her into trouble in the past, so she knows he’s not drunk yet, but there’s enough of a hint to his speech to let her know that he’s also not as far away as she’d like.

“It’s something. An anniversary. Let’s see.” She sits up straight and ticks each item off on her fingers. “No marriages. No divorces. No significant others. No birthdays. Now, come on, Doug. There’s got to be something that’s caused this breakdown. Whatever could it be?”

“Maybe I just wanted a drink.”

Jen sighs again and shakes her head, setting her chin back in her hand. “You never just want a drink. You’re just like Pacey in your tee-totaling ways, determined not to be a drunk like your uncle and father. So confess.”

“You’re my confessor, are you?

She smiles and raises an eyebrow. “You doubt my priestly abilities? I’ll have you know that my ability to assess sin is one that was hard-won and only obtained through determination and practice.”

Doug laughs and takes another drink, tilting the glass in her direction as a toast. “Of that, my dear Miss Lindley, I have no doubt.”

“So, come on.” She kicks his foot lightly under the table. “Pacey put me in charge of keeping you on the straight and narrow.” She pauses to allow him to smirk at the old joke before continuing. “So you have to tell me what’s wrong so I can get the hell out of this place. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“There’s this girl.”

“There’s always a girl, Doug.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” He drains his glass and gets up, getting two beers at the counter, bringing them both over and sliding one in front of her. Jen raises an eyebrow, not about to question his contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and lifts it to take a sip. It’s low-rent beer, which tastes a lot like flavored water and will probably make her sick and give her a headache for at least a year. “So there’s this girl.”

“And you like her?”

“Yeah.” He takes another drink and stares down into the glass like there are answers swimming in the remaining liquid. “But she’s not exactly _aware_ of the fact. Or possibly of the fact that I’m alive.”

“Have you ever arrested her?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I’m just thinking, if you arrested her, she’d definitely know you were alive. She might not like you much, but she’d _know_.”

Doug exhales a stuttering laugh. “I’d rather not have her look at me and think about handcuffs.”

“Well, she’s obviously the wrong kind of girl then.”

He smiles and takes another drink, tilting his head and watching her as she takes another small sip of her beer. “So, what would you do?”

“You mean if I had a thing for someone and they didn’t even know I was alive?” He nods and she shrugs. “Make them notice. Go where they are. Put myself in front of them. Make their acquaintance.”

“And then?”

“What do you mean, and then?” She laughs and leans back against the bench seat, feeling the naugahyde stick to the bottom of her thighs and reminding herself to wear jeans in the increasingly diminishing chance that she might come here again. “Then they’ll be so swept away with your charm and sexiness that you ask them out before they can recover. The next thing you know you’re dating, married, having kids, growing old, sitting on porches in your eighties talking like you’re Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn. Haven’t you ever read a romance novel?”

“No.”

“Huh. And you don’t date, so I imagine the chick flick isn’t something you’re all that into, unless Pacey’s to be believed, and I don’t think either of us are willing to go that far out on a limb.”

“I appreciate your faith in my heterosexuality.”

“Hey, you’re the one saying there’s a girl. Who am I to argue?” She sips her beer again. “So, is there any place you’re likely to run into this mystery woman?”

“A few.”

“So you frequent those places. Not in a creepy, stalkerish type way. Just a casual ‘oh, you shop here too’ sort of way or a ‘hey, can I buy you a drink’ sort of way.”

“So I buy her a drink.”

“Something like that. I’m brainstorming. Try to keep up.”

“I’ve had a few more than you. Cut me a little slack.” He shifts and leans back in his chair and Jen looks him over, noting the way his t-shirt pulls across his chest, emphasizing his police department regulation physique. “Then what.”

“She says yes. You drink. You talk. You do know how to talk, right? Banter. Back and forth? Give and take?”

“I’m familiar with the concept, yes.”

“All right then.” She takes another drink, starting to feel the buzz burning at the back of her throat, sliding down to her stomach and lower. “So you do that a little. And then you buy her another drink. No more than three. Very important.”

“Why’s that?” He finishes his own beer and watches her, his blue eyes strangely hot in the dim light of the bar.

“More than three and you’re trying to get her drunk, and you don’t want to be _that_ guy.”

“That guy?”

“The guy that gets laid by drunk women. The guy that’s so desperate for a little action that he buys the legal equivalent of a roofie and scores. That’s just sad.”

“And I don’t want to be sad.”

“Pathetic is bad enough. Sad is too much.” She takes another drink, bigger this time, feeling the burn fade faster with every sip. “So you drink. You talk. And then you ask her out. Always do this first.”

“First?”

“Before you ask her to go home and have sex with you.”

Doug coughs and blinks at her. “I’m sorry?”

“You do want to get laid, right?”

“I don’t see how that’s the point here.”

“Bullshit. You want to get laid. It’s a perfectly natural thing. Some people even do this other thing called masturbation. I find it hard to believe you have Pacey as a brother and don’t know this sort of thing.”

“I know…I want to get to know her. Date her.”

“Right. And get laid.”

“I…”

“Right?”

“Well…”

“Right?”

Doug sighs. “Right.”

“Right.” Jen smiles and takes another drink, longer this time, draining the rest of the glass. “So, you do the other part and set up a date before you take her home. Works like a charm every single time.”

“Every single time.”

Jen nods. “Yup.”

“You guarantee it?”

She nods again. “Yup.”

“So I buy her a drink. Talk to her.”

“Then ask her out.”

“Yeah.”

“Just like, ‘Jen would you go out with me to a movie this Friday’?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“And then she’ll go home with me and have sex with me.”

“She will.”

Doug nods and slides out of the booth, holding his hand out to her. “Come on then.”

“Where?”

“Home. To have sex with me.”

“But…” She stops and stares at him, her brow furrowed for a moment before it smoothes out and she starts to laugh. “You _tricked_ me.”

“I followed your advice.”

Jen takes his hand and stands up. “Huh. Well, I’ll be damned.”

“You say that now.” He leans in and whispers the words against her ear, hot breath flooding her senses. “And we haven’t even started.”  



End file.
